LODE GOING TO POT

SONORA -- It was like medical marijuana law day Monday in the Mother Lode.

First, a blind diabetes patient in Sonora got five years' probation for
growing pot, and then celebrity attorney Tony Serra led a rally in San
Andreas for a cultivation defendant who says he was growing for cannabis
clubs.

"Law enforcement agencies should be seeking to actualize the law," Serra
told about 100 people in front of the Calaveras County Courthouse.
"Instead, they seek to subvert the democratic process."

The law he referred to is Proposition 215, the "compassionate use"
initiative California voters passed in November. It legalizes marijuana for
people with doctors' prescriptions or recommendations.

Several Bay Area cannabis clubs distribute pot to such patients. And Robert
Galambos of Paloma claims he was growing for several of those clubs when
his patch of 380 plants was raided last summer.

Galambos is scheduled for trial starting April 29 on a felony cultivation
charge. Serra is on the defense team, joined by Sonora defense attorney
Michael Weisberg.

"There's something the matter," Weisberg told Monday's rally, "when the
voters say marijuana is legal for medical use and the prosecution still
wants to stamp it out."

Other speakers included Calaveras County Supervisor Tom Tryon, a
Libertarian who considers the war on drugs an abuse of the government's
power and a waste of its time and money.

Galambos attended the rally, but did not speak, and he declined to talk to
reporters about his case. The district attorney's office wouldn't talk
about it, either.

According to sheriff's Lt. Mike Walker, though, the cannabis-club defense
wasn't raised during the raid last year. Walker said he learned of it just
last week, through posters promoting Monday's rally.

But Serra said it's a "bona fide case" of a person who was growing for
those clubs, and also a significant case in the evolution of Proposition
215 law. This is the first trial, he said, where a cannabis club's contract
grower is charged.

And the contract growers are essential, Serra said, because "you can't in
essence legalize milk and outlaw the cow."

Earlier Monday in Sonora, Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eric
DuTemple fined Myron Mower $1,000 and put him on probation for another five
years.

Mower only recently completed an earlier probation for the same charge --
cultivation of pot. He suffers from a variety of diseases and disabilities,
including blindness, diabetes, digestive dysfunctions and "wasting
syndrome" that his doctor, Joy Boggess, said is similar to what happens to
AIDS patients.

In Mower's case, the county drug agency knew he had his doctor's permission
to use pot. He was allowed to grow it, but agents could raid his garden
without warrants while he was on that earlier probation.

When they found 31 plants there last summer, they said that was too many.

After Monday's sentencing, Mower said the bust not only had put him back on
probation, but also cost him his plants. Raiders confiscated all but three,
of which one died, one turned into a worthless male and one was later
stolen.

"This is all a lot of bulls--- for nothing," Mower said. "They could be
spending their time taking care of real criminals."